Absorbent articles including incontinence pads and those for females including discharge sheets, pantyliners and sanitary napkins are conventionally known to be formed from a liquid-impermeable back-surface sheet, such as a polyethylene sheet or a polyethylene sheet-laminated nonwoven fabric; a front-surface sheet; and an absorber that is composed of a cellulose wadding, e.g., crushed pulp, and that is interposed between the back-surface sheet and the front-surface sheet.
The front-surface sheet, due to forming a skin-contacting face, is demanded to be soft, provide a texture felt to be dry even after absorbing excreted liquid, less stimulate the skin and such. Materials that meet such demands and widely employed in the field of absorbent articles, particularly in the field of incontinence pads, are nonwoven fabrics formed of synthetic fibers or mesh sheets composed of resins. Nonetheless, the front-surface sheet composed of synthetic fibers can be a cause of problems such as itch and rash.
A proposal made for addressing the above issue is a front-surface sheet formed of cotton fibers (cotton). With absorbent articles demanded to include a front-surface sheet having a high liquid-permeability and being quick to allow liquid to reach an absorber, the inclusion of usual defatted cotton fibers in the front-surface sheet involves problems: the exhibition of high water retainability by the front-surface sheet itself, with a result that the sense of stickiness is likely to remain on the front-surface.
Such an absorbent article with its front-surface sheet composed of cotton fibers, though beneficially realizing the texture felt to be as soft as underwear, has a high liquid retainability as described above. For this reason, body fluid when excreted in a large amount, by remaining on such a front-surface sheet, would cause stuffiness, rash and other problems in long-hour wearing of such an absorbent article. Thus, use of conventional absorbent articles with their front-surface sheet composed of cotton fibers have been limited to such products as discharge sheets, which do not need to absorb much amount of body fluid.
An example of such an absorbent article with its front-surface sheet composed of cotton fibers is the one disclosed in Patent Literature 1. Patent Literature 1 discloses an absorbent article with its top sheet composed of spunlace nonwoven fabrics that are composed of 40 to 100 wt % of cotton fibers and 60 to 0 wt % of synthetic fibers and are coated with a water repellent agent, wherein the top sheet has, on its skin-contacting face, a water absorbing capacity of 0 mm to 5 mm, and has, at least at its portion corresponding to an excreting hole, numerous front-face/back-face penetrating openings. Such an absorbent article having the top sheet that is composed of spunlace nonwoven fabrics composed of a high content of cotton fibers provides some benefits inherent in the cotton fibers, such as the texture felt good to the skin and the unlikeliness to cause such problems as itch and rash; and another benefit is that the problem of the liquid remaining on the front-surface is adequately addressed by the water repellent agent applied (externally-added) thereby ensuring that the skin-contacting face has a sufficiently low water absorbing capacity. In response to the problem that merely lowering the water absorbing capacity does not enable liquid of an excreted substance to easily pass through the top sheet, which would possibly cause e.g., sideward liquid leakage, the top sheet of the absorbent article described in Patent Literature 1 has, at least at its portion corresponding to an excreting hole, the numerous front-face/back-face penetrating openings aimed at prompt liquid absorption. This configuration is described in Patent Literature 1 as bringing about benefits such as adequate prevention of stickiness that would be caused by the liquid remaining on the front-surface, and the inhibition of the excreted liquid that has been absorbed from reverting to the front-face of the top sheet due to the water repellency exhibited by the top sheet.